The Tao Of Joe

Shit has hit the fan over Federated Media paying A-Listers to provide sloganeering input for Microsoft’s People Ready initiative. Nick Denton of Valleywag called foul, pointing out that the integrity of the A Listers involved; Matt Marshall, Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Fred Wilson, Richard MacManus, Paul Kedrosky, Mike Davidson and John Battelle of Federated Media, was compromised as a result of their participation.

Federated Media shot back that “Conversational Marketing” was an evolving form of marketing and that Microsoft did not pay the participants, but rather, “They were invited to join a conversation with readers about Microsoft’s new theme, and they did so, but they didn’t write about it on their blogs.”

And that is nothing more than a load of slippery semantics at play. Language can be manipulated and massaged to create an illusion of truthiness but a falsehood is still a lie even when you are clever and can make it sound like it is something else. Conversations involving special payouts of unique ad content for only the participants invited into the conversation and as a result are guaranteed additional revenue is still “being paid by Microsoft for a bit of A Lister Love” John Battelle, Fred Wilson and Mike Arrington (the ones crying foul the loudest).

By the way, Mike Arrington of TechCrunch is claiming “bullshit” and that all this is, is pay-per-click advertising, no different than any other ad ran on his websites. He goes on to cry about needing to pay bills and employees and that Nick Denton is hurting his bottom line by creating a brouhaha over something that it ain’t. Bullshit! My own words. The difference is large enough to fly a fleet of Starcruisers through. This from the guy that launches million dollar startups in his living room over beers and bar-b-que and whines that Silicon Valley needs a downturn right about now so he can have fun again. Give me a break. Your as guilty as the rest of the people destroying the party Mike.

Here’s the difference for those of you that might be confused. Only a select group (all A Listers) were paid to participate. Those that received the invitation to discuss Microsofts People Ready theme were given unique ad content to run on their sites which are paid for by Microsoft. These ads are indeed pay-per-click just as Mike Arrington describes BUT with a crucial difference, the only individuals that get to run the premium ads are the very same “Tech A Listers” invited to participate in the advertisement *cough-cough* er-um, I mean conversation, yea - that’s it, it’s a conversation. Just ask Fred Wilson.

I personally love it. Matt Marshall, Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Fred Wilson, Richard MacManus, Paul Kedrosky, Mike Davidson and John Battelle can continue to eat at the trough of their advertisers and claim to be unbiased on their blogs while continuing to erode their audiences confidence regarding their editorial integrity. This is exactly the kind of opening I and other Z Listers need to become the future A Listers. Make no mistake, blogging took off and became the force that it is today precisely because joe citizen (aka I still have a brain and know when I am being lied to by the media) finally had an alternative expert of sorts to get his or her news from regarding the industries and interests that they held dear. Yes finally someone was giving them quality information on tech industry and services who weren’t stained by the advertisement revenues of the companies they covered.

I still remember how only three or four short years ago MSM (Main Stream Media) still pooh-poohed bloggers and wouldn’t give them the time of day. This was because the ad revenue upon which their operations and lifestyles depended was still being given to them by all of the Microsofts and Entertainment Industry giants of the world. Then suddenly the shift started with Google’s Adsense and blogs began getting the advertisement revenue and now look who comes to dinner. Corporations and the advertisers they hire are right to be cynical, they know deep down that once a media source becomes accustomed to receiving ad revenue from them directly that they have power. I’m sure each one of the A Listers that accepted the “invitation” justified it as a business opportunity and that if they refused, while their competitor accepted, they would be losing out. Shortsighted but easily rationalized as staying competitive in a free market.

The current crop of A Listers have become that which they were once an alternative, they’re now just as compromised and biased as the journos they replaced. It didn’t take very long either, in only two to four short years depending on which blogger we are looking at. Blogging only really became completely mainstream itself in 2005. The fall of 2004 cemented the blogging worlds ascendancy to power during the final leg of the presidential election cycle.

They can still clean up their act if they want too, there is time and all they have to do is apologize, blame it on there own immaturity in this field and chalk it up to experience and move on. Some of them won’t and that is good for those of us who are as lean and hungry as they were in 2002. The world is our oyster.

What do you think?

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